Postcards from Deployment: Doin’ the Ditch

When last heard from, Southern Air Pirate was sampliing the joys of liberty in Naples. His latest missive recounts the experience of transiting the Suez Canal beginning in Port Said as the Truman CSG presses on to relieve the Enterprise CSG. To help set the stage, see the map below (click to enlarge):

Well we just finished making the trip through the Suez Canal, also commonly called the “Ditch” by most of us. There really isn’t that much to see when you go through the canal if you haven’t done so before. On either side at selected points there are the remains of burned out T-55’s, T-62’s, and some Russian built trucks. All of these are leftovers from the 1973 October war. Further on there are some little Egyptian army posts where the Egyptian Army places selected patrols to protect the traffic going through from some Jihadist with either an RPG or a Rifle. Actually, I am wrong as I think about this now. There are two big things to notice on the transit. The first is the Peace Bridge, which I have included some pictures of in this postcard. It is a bridge that is tall enough that a modern US Carrier doesn’t have to do anything special to go under it. It connects Egypt proper with the Sinai Peninsula. Later on is a memorial to the Egyptian 2nd Army and their war dead from the 1973 October War. The thing that makes this stand out is the center piece of this memorial is a building that looks just like a large bayonet. I have also included some pictures of that as well. I had a chance to borrow a pair of binoculars and look even deeper into the memorial then I have usually been able to. It was interesting and tweaking with my simple digital camera I was able to get these shots of the memorial. They have the portions of a SA-3 Goa site put up with marble monuments talking about something heroic that I am sure of.

Just after that we past by one of the two major anchorages to let other traffic slip by and I started to notice some of the major shipping companies that were also using the canal to move everything from TVs, to reading books, to clothes and everything in between. At various points along the canal you can spot little resorts here and there. We passed by one that was having a Macarena dancing contest. The announcer was calling it out in English, German, and Arabic. That was kind of funny.

We hit the Great Bitter Lake and dropped anchor for about an hour to let traffic that was heading north bound go past us. That was interesting, mainly because it reminded me that where I worked was just outside the air conditioning boundary and on top of that we were in a force protection status so the hangar bays were shut up, so it sucked to work down there as well. On top of that because it was going to take us about 12-14hours to make the transit and we couldn’t suck up any water to make some fresh water. Showers were cut off and drinking water was limited. There was a run at the ship’s store on Gatorade and on the various soda machines onboard for sodas or juice. The other thing that really sucked was flies out the ying-yang. Small annoying black ones and large green ones, oh my gosh they were annoying. Once enough of the traffic starting moving we weighed anchor and continued south some more.

I have included some various pictures here and there of the transit and some of the things that I saw.

You and a few of your readers were asking I am sure where I will be spending Christmas? I don’t know as of yet, rumors are running fast and rampant around the mess decks. We should find out in the next couple of days where the holidays will be spent at and that should put a damper on the rumors. I will report about my next port when it happens. They are starting to put up the decorations around ship for the holidays. Well that is all that is fit to print for right now. I will write more when and if things happen.